The lion King paradox

[Stormspark]

They're speaking in Lion. It just happens to sound exactly like english.

- - - Updated - - -



Kimba the White Lion has nothing to do with the Lion King other than the fact that there are lions involved.


The Lion King is Hamlet told with animals.

No, Kimba came first, and it has almost the exact same story. Several scenes were literally lifted frame by frame out of Kimba. Several of the voice actors were under the impression that they were doing a Kimba remake. They were actually shown scenes from Kimba while it was in development. Then the executives at Disney decided to suddenly change their story and claim "oh we never heard of Kimba before, this is totally original". Yeah right.

http://hubpages.com/entertainment/TH...the-White-Lion

[the game]

They speak finnish.

You spelled English wrong. Common mistake though.

[Doylez]

What if we're actually speaking Lion and not English?
Makes u think.

[Kaleredar]

http://hubpages.com/entertainment/TH...the-White-Lion

The plot of the two films (Kimba was actually a manga and a show before it was a film) have almost nothing in common.

Kimba involves a lion brokering peace with humans after his father is killed by human hunters. The Lion King involves... none of that.


Meanwhile, Hamlet is about a prince (check) who succeeds his father (check) after his father is killed by his uncle (check) who did so to take over the kingdom, (check) requiring the prince to go back to confront his uncle after being instructed by the ghost of his father.... (check.)

Your article doesn't actually state "the animators were shown pieces of Kimba to copy."

As far as poses of lions goes... Lions have been posed in the "looking up triumphantly while roaring" pose in basically every representation of a lion since humans started making art of them.

[May90]

Because they don't live in Africa, they live in the room your TV is set in!

[Powerogue]

How's come in the lion King the animals live in Africa but speak english?

Or how come they're lions but they don't speak Lion? WHAT ARE YOU, SOME KIND OF SPECIESISTS, DISNEY?!

[schwarzkopf]

How's come in the lion King the animals live in Africa but speak english?

How come in the real world, the animals live in the USA but speak English ?

Yes OP - mysteries.

[Darklurker]

Maybe, just maybe, they are not speaking English, but we are speaking Lion.

[hrugner]

Weird, it's all just grunts and growls to me. I think you all must be a bunch of filthy animals.

[misterconfuse]

How exactly is this a paradox?

[Theodarzna]

How's come in the lion King the animals live in Africa but speak english?

Because you the viewer are hearing the story told to you in English.

[Shoat]

Clear english in a foreign land never bothered me, it's when native speakers speak english with an accent that is stupid. Either we see a translated world or we don't.

To be honest, I'd rather hear a stupid accent in an english-dubbed movie than the insultingly bad wrongly-pronounced version of non-english voiceacting they sneak in sometimes. I mean, stupid english accents aren't really a thing I've encountered in real life (apart from people intentionally imitating them for comedy), but at least they're less insulting to the ears than botched german.

If you want to have a character in your movie (or game - looking at you, xcom remake's dr. vahlen) not dubbed in the language that you're airing the movie in, then at least find someone who can actually properly speak the language, if you're not willing or able to do that, have 'em speak english with a stupid racist accent, that is less offensive.

[Macaquerie]

I love how everyone in this thread is just befuddled by the prospect of Africans speaking English. English isn't any less foreign to America than it is to Africa, and only a tiny minority of Americans have any trace of English ancestry, yet nobody really questions that cartoon animals that are meant to be "American" would speak English, so why any different for the Lion King?

Actually you could probably see the whole movie as some kind of metaphor for imperialism, with the lions representing the British going around lording over everything and defining everyone's role in the circle of life in defiance of established reality. After all, in nature lions are generally too big and clumsy to hunt effectively, and survive on scavenging kills from smaller predators, like hyenas. The irony....

[PACOX]

The speaking animals speaking English was the problem? Not the fact that lions were living peaceful among animals that they eat?

[Ilfayt]

The plot of the two films (Kimba was actually a manga and a show before it was a film) have almost nothing in common.

Kimba involves a lion brokering peace with humans after his father is killed by human hunters. The Lion King involves... none of that.


Meanwhile, Hamlet is about a prince (check) who succeeds his father (check) after his father is killed by his uncle (check) who did so to take over the kingdom, (check) requiring the prince to go back to confront his uncle after being instructed by the ghost of his father.... (check.)

Your article doesn't actually state "the animators were shown pieces of Kimba to copy."

As far as poses of lions goes... Lions have been posed in the "looking up triumphantly while roaring" pose in basically every representation of a lion since humans started making art of them.

But again, the plot of the final product wasn't what they have in common, but a bunch of the minor elements. Claw as an enemy and the whole 'dark lion' deal, the 'pride rock' shot, "Father in the clouds", The Mandrill and other animals filling in 'similar' roles as lion king ended up having. It really looks like they 'sketched' the concept of their characters as inspired by Kimba, filling out the 'vague' roles they had in Kimba before layering the Hamlet plot elements on top. The "Skin" is Lion King, the 'flesh' is Hamlet, but the "Bones" are very, very much Kimba.

[TheCount]

My problem was with Pride Rock. How much geographic sense does it make to have 1 giant rock plopped in the middle of the pridelands.
Also that 1 hyena spoke like he was an LA Mexican. *mind blown*

[Kaleredar]

But again, the plot of the final product wasn't what they have in common, but a bunch of the minor elements. Claw as an enemy and the whole 'dark lion' deal, the 'pride rock' shot, "Father in the clouds", The Mandrill and other animals filling in 'similar' roles as lion king ended up having. It really looks like they 'sketched' the concept of their characters as inspired by Kimba, filling out the 'vague' roles they had in Kimba before layering the Hamlet plot elements on top. The "Skin" is Lion King, the 'flesh' is Hamlet, but the "Bones" are very, very much Kimba.

You really think they went about the movie filling in the side characters before they came up with the actual story?

"Well we're gonna have the sage monkey and the wisecracking bird and there's gonna be a villain lion... shit what should the story be...?"

[Afrospinach]

They speak a ton of languages, English is merely one of them.

I like this explanation lol

My problem was with Pride Rock. How much geographic sense does it make to have 1 giant rock plopped in the middle of the pridelands.
Also that 1 hyena spoke like he was an LA Mexican. *mind blown*

These rock outcroppings are real common in Africa, The south africans have a name for them which I have never seen written down, I think Kope(Copy) and they are notorious for being lion dens. Not all as impressive as this but the south Serengeti is literally just a bunch of islands of rock outcroppings breaking the flat Savannah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden..._National_Park

Ah that word is Koppie, or Kopje pronounced exactly the same way.

https://www.google.com/search?q=kopp...=2560&bih=1310 Google image search, be amazed "pride rock" is very much an inspired by real life idea.

[Dasani]

How come the capital of Earth in the Mass Effect series is in Vancouver Canada of all places?

I mean I get the only reason they did that was as a sort of joke since it was made by canadians and vancouver was hosting the winter olympics at the time but come on.

[Trassk]

I dunno, why are most people in beauty and the beast, where it's set in France, speak American? Why does Frolo in hunchback have so much power as a judge? What do predators eat in zootopia if they can't eat pray animals? Where do they get milk from in that movie? And leather?